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November 29, 2005

OMFG, they are rennovating our officeplex as I sit here. I have been belched and farted at since, like, 6am! Hell! On! Earth!

In other news: hideous, crippling disappointment that the Warhol Museum's store does not, as promised in a magazine I read, have a set of pierogi-shaped string lights for sale on their website. How can you make a promise like that and then not come through? I am sure that whomever did that finished their day by kicking a puppy. Do I even need to tell you that the tiny, lit-from-within pierogies had adorable little smiley faces painted on them? Despair!

Quick-like seen/heard: I meant to remark last Wednesday on the super-hyper-mega-great Joel Gion cameo on "Gilmore Girls"! (Hey, I can't be both pretty and timely at the same time. Ha!) And look, Ken Mehlman is spotted dancing with a girl, stop the presses! Obsessed with the dog with the pandaesque dye-job 110%. Harper's has a new editor who is kind of a dish.

November 28, 2005

Gracious, dear readers, I have had some form of turkey at every meal for the last 4 days. I swear, I smell turkey coming out of my pores...I am grossing myself out just sitting here. See, Mr. Pink thought it would be clever to make a twenty-something pound turkey for our Thanksgiving guests -- a total of 5 people, only 4 of whom eat meat -- and now, despite giving everyone who visits, calls or passes us in the street a tupperware container of turkey, we are still swimming in it. Don't even get me started on the gallon or so of acorn squash-tofu puree that is in the fridge. I don't think I am being vain when I say that my cornbread was practically gone before dinner was served!

November 22, 2005

Just getting around to reading the Sunday Book Review...lovely little essay from Jonathan Lethem on Italio Calvino. I have, over the past several years, started reading Calvino and have found it a rich, if occasionally strenuous, experience.

I have long noticed that the way the media tells a story tends to send signals, and this is a pretty good breakdown about the way the narrative is playing these days in the (oh, I shudder to say it) mainstream media.

Another good bit of reading, courtesy of America's favorite knitting/political hybrid weblog, At My Knits End: it's 5 Minutes with Paul Krugman! I had fallen behind on reading Kerstin's stuff over the past month or so, but it's so good to come back and see her carrying on the good fight.

Finally, a shoutout to the folks who are losing their jobs at GM. What a terrible way to kick off the holiday season, and how utterly disheartening that the corporate governance at the world's largest auto maker can't take care of the people upon whose backs their expense account is hoisted.

It just seems like another sad bit of news, heaped on top of the casualties in Iraq, the rising deficit, the reduced social programs, blah blah blah...but then you spend a few minutes thinking, "Hey, that's somebody's dad who doesn't have a job anymore, and what kind of job is going to come in and take its place?" And the answer is, of course, service jobs, minimum wage, another family joining the working poor...and the food stamps and the student loans have been cut, and they won't have healthcare, and to drive their car to get to their new dishwashing job costs almost 50% of the hourly wage, and, and, and, and, and...there's just nothing left.

So while it seems like just another sad industrial job loss news story that doesn't mean anything to all of us east- and left-coasters and Ivy Leaguers and (God forgive me) liberal elite, it's really the very foundation of the country sinking into the mud. Goodbye, Middle Class America, we've had a good run.

November 21, 2005

Oh, Washington-types, I hope you are going to take some time this holiday season to bask in the healing love of the baby panda! This is, like, my dream date!

Other seen/heards for the day:yesterday's Gothamist links to some op-ed interestingness from the Zagats re: restaurants/NYC hott neighborhoods that is excellent food for thought (ha, I am [sort of] punning here!); another bit of fascinatingosity from Gothamist: an email interview with the authors of Thrillist which, as with all things Thrillist, both excites and repulses me in a way I thought I was done with when I got married; I am 110% behind dismissing anyone wearing Sevens; Fitzgerald's Libby indictment un-debunked at TPM; from last week, Arianna puts it to Woodward; does this lip plumper work or what, because if it does, I think I am going to buy it...my lips feel a bit unplump lately.

One of my coworkers keeps wishing everyone "happy holidays," which strikes me as a bit much. Is this just grinchiness? I mean, I have already started my holiday shopping -- a talking Japanese watch and a harmonica (I am, like, the best wife ever) are already at home waiting to be wrapped all pretty -- but gracious, I am not ready for the holiday goodwill onslaught to begin just yet.

November 18, 2005

Oh, nasty day, but then I read this one little phrase -- a fleeting cameo by Jarvis Cocker-- and everything is much better. I had read that ages ago, but had forgotten! Fabulous!

Actually, I have a new and improved life plan, and I think everything is going to be just fine. It involved the sad realization that no one is going to come and rescue my ass, so I had better do things myself. (I think I may be a grown-up now!)

So that's that. Now, as for the rest of today's news! Did you see Congressman Murtha all soundbit up over the news last night? (I have decided that that is going to be a word now, "soundbit." Feel free to implement it into your speech, darlings.) Interesting stuff, he is brave. I'll bet it was really hard for him to say the things he did, and he probably feels kind of lonely, out there in front of the full force of the crazypants Bushies. Go Murtha, you can do it!

Guess where my dad is going this weekend! Heinz Field for the WPIAL playoffs! Go Rochester Rams! Last year for Christmas, I knit my dad a matching hat and scarf set in Rochester colors for precisely this occasion, so I hope he will wear them since it seems likely to be cold. Oh, I just love to think about high school football, it's so crazy that so many adults would be so batshit over seventeen year olds running around!

Speaking of knitting -- I just bought 2 skeins of Vesper. Is this going to be, like, knitting crack? Because the enthusiasm folks have for this stuff suggests it might be.